


The Great Glenanne

by orphan_account



Category: Burn Notice
Genre: Backstory, Canonical Character Death, Drugs, Gen, Kidnapping, Minor Character Death, Misses Clause Challenge, Original Character(s), Origins, Roleplay, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-13
Updated: 2012-12-13
Packaged: 2017-11-21 01:43:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/592029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or: How bread pudding changed Fiona's life.  Twice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Who Dares Wins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [baseballchica03](https://archiveofourown.org/users/baseballchica03/gifts).



> Dear baseballchica03, I found your letter via the DYA spreadsheet this year. I really liked your letter and I decided to treat you! I know this is only a Fiona story, and it's my idea of her backstory, but I hope you like it. 
> 
> I did add some Fiona quotes from seasons one and six at the start of the second part, but they're not spoilery.
> 
> ***
> 
> If you're wondering, I'm working off of the retconned history of Fiona's backstory, where she gets out of the IRA and is only selling illegal arms by the time she meets Michael, per the sixth season and the comic First Contact. (That's how much the show's been retconned.)

> Anger ventilated often hurries towards forgiveness; anger concealed often hardens into revenge.
> 
> Edward Bulwer-Lytton

 

Fiona's motivation for 14 years was Claire. 

She never saw Claire getting shot.  She was cooking bread pudding, an apology treat after the bitter fight they had gotten into.  And all because of a large cranberry juice stain in Claire's sweater that wouldn't come out in the wash.

Fiona added too much cinnamon to the bread pudding.  As a result, it was bitter and inedible.  It was okay.  Fiona could start over.  She had enough stale bread and time, especially since Claire was late from shopping.  

Then it turned out Claire wasn't late after all.

 

For days Fiona imagined Claire being shot.  Sometimes she'd see the bullet enter her throat right in front of her.  Sometimes she'd be right beside the solider that shot at Claire.  Her fantasies always ended with Claire, wide-eyed, choking on her own blood until she died.  Fiona couldn't get out an apology before Claire stopped breathing.   

The British Army sent a condolence letter to Fiona's mother.  The solider, from the 22nd Regiment of the Special Air Service, shot at Claire because his superiors thought she was a Provisional Irish Republican Army soldier.

That was the moment Fiona decided _she_ would be a Provisional IRA solider.  Not because she wanted to liberate Northern Ireland from the British, and not because she had grown up Catholic, but because she wanted to avenge Claire's death.

 

Nothing stopped Fiona in her quest, not even when the Provisional IRA declared a ceasefire.  She joined the Real IRA instead.  They were fond of bombs like she was.  The more improvised it was, the better.  

Then the Real IRA asked her to make a bomb that was supposed to go off in a London post office.

Fiona wasn't informed about the bomb's final destination.  She thought she was bombing an English army base.  She even prepared the bomb so airline security couldn't detect the contents through x-ray detection or bomb-sniffing dogs. 

Fiona was confused when her associates drove into London after leaving Heathrow.  There wasn't an army base in the heart of London.

Her companions arrived at the postal office.   Fiona realized the postal office was the bomb's final destination.

The bitter bread pudding came to Fiona's mind.  Fiona's grudge was against the British Army.  It wasn't against English postal workers.

Fiona planted the bomb at the post office.  She discreetly disconnected the phone that would trigger the bomb.

Fiona and her associates were forced to flee when the Metropolitan Police Explosive Ordinance Disposal Unit appeared at the post office.

When she was back in Ireland, Fiona quit the Real IRA.  Her associates never knew she sabotaged the bomb.  


	2. I Help the Hopeless

> I work a job, buy a snow globe.  Some people say I'm sentimental. […]
> 
> Italy was one of my favorites.
> 
> Fiona, "Wanted Man"
> 
>  
> 
> Oh, Michael, look!  My alias went to Venice in '03.  That doesn't let you off the hook for not taking me.
> 
> Fiona, "Odd Man Out"

 

With her skills, Fiona found something she could do after leaving the IRA: gun running.  Writing "Provisional IRA, 14 years, specializing in grand theft auto, the operation and selling of firearms and explosives" on a transcript wouldn't get her a normal job anyway.

Even though the gun running paid well, she still felt like she failed Claire.       

Then, while preparing some semi-automatic rifles for a client, she saw an article on a newspaper she left on her table.  She stopped prepping the rifles and read the article. 

A girl had been missing from Dublin for three days.  She was playing in Phoenix Park when she was lured away by her father.  The father left no evidence of the girl's disappearance. 

The girl was three years old and could walk by herself.  The father appeared to have picked her up and not let her feet touch the ground until they left the country.  Since the child's father was Italian, it was believed he and the child were in Italy, most likely in Venice, where the father grew up.

And then it hit Fiona.  _This_ would be the way she would avenge Claire's death.  She'd be a private investigator, like Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe.  Except she'd sell weapons on the side, have more C4 and, what the hell, she could occasionally rob a money laundering weasel on the side for charity. 

 

"You said you tried every avenue you could to find your daughter?" Fiona said to Chevonne, the mother of the kidnapped girl, Aileen.

"I've called the police, missing persons charities, people who have friends in Venice…"

"And you've found nothing, correct?"

Chevonne shook her head.

"What does Giovanni do again?"

"He's a drug dealer."

"Hmm, that's not something they mention in the Blue Guides."

"He knows how to hide there.  I'm afraid I'll never see her again."

Fiona shook her head.  "You'll see her again.  I'll bring her back to you.  I'm not the police."

"I know.  You're ex-IRA.  You sell illegal weapons.  I don't know if I'm supposed to be talking to you." 

"You can talk to me.  The police aren't going to arrest you.  But, as I was saying, I'm not the police.  I'm _better_ than the police."   She flashed her eyebrows.

 

Fiona's biggest problem with her trip came down to one thing: what gun to pack.  She was fond of her snubnosed revolver, a Colt Detective Special.  It was the gun she had when she was in the Provisional and Real IRA, and she took it with her for her gun deals.  She also wanted to take a gun she didn't use as frequently, a Walther PPK/S.  The bullets required for both the Colt and the Walther were about the same size, .380 caliber.  Both guns held six bullets.  Both guns could be hidden in a handbag or in her favorite lacy holster.  The only difference was the Colt wasn't automatic but the Walther was.

After a moment, Fiona grabbed her Walther and put it in her checked luggage.  If the man had automatic weapons, it would be easier to load the Walther with clips, and if she needed to bean the man in the head, she could do that without fear of the Walther breaking apart. She'd save the Colt for nights out at the Black Sand Pub in Belfast. 

 

Fiona settled into her hotel in the sestieri of Dorsoduro.  She waited until nightfall to ask about Giovanni.

In Campo Santa Margherita, a plaza in Dorsoduro, Fiona kept an eye out for well-dressed people walking in and out of the bars.  Fiona found a man in a suit that looked like it came out of an _Esquire UK_ spread.  She followed the man in the bar and kept an eye on him.

When the man was alone, Fiona ordered a martini for herself and sat beside him in one of the bar's corners.  The man didn't protest Fiona's presence.

"And who might you be?" the man asked Fiona in English.  His voice had a heavy Italian accent. 

"Annette," Fiona said in an American accent.  Fiona's American accent wasn't the best of fake American accents (for reasons she didn't understand, sometimes she'd have a slight English accent while performing her American accent) but the man couldn't tell the difference.  "Annette Moon."

"American?"

Fiona smiled and nodded.

"What's a sweet little girl like you doing around a man like me?"  He chuckled.

"I was wondering if you could lead me to some of your finest snow."

The man looked at Fiona, confused.

"You know…"

Fiona hung around cocaine users in Ireland as research.  She never partook in sniffing cocaine, but she was aware of how the cocaine users snorted their lines and their behavior after they ingested cocaine. 

Fiona made a chopping motion on top of her right hand.  She plugged up her left nostril and snorted the "lines" off of her hand, mimicking the cocaine users she saw in Ireland.

"Oh, cocaine!"

"I heard some of the finest snow comes from Brazil, and you get it here from Guinea." 

The man nodded.  "We have that stuff over here.  Here's the man you need to meet to get the good stuff."

The man wrote Giovanni's name and address on a bar napkin.

"I'd love to stay, but I'd like to run out and get my fix before I go back to the bars."

The man wrote his name on another napkin and handed it to Fiona.  "Call me after you get your fix, okay?"

Fiona winked.  "Okay."

The man spanked Fiona's ass as she was leaving, much to her shock and chagrin.

Fiona made sure to throw the man's number away in the nearest trash can.  It couldn't soothe where she was spanked, but at least she knew she'd left the man at the bar with blue balls.

 

The next day, dressed as a tourist, Fiona took a tour of a church near Giovanni's residence.  Whenever the tour stopped, Fiona attempted to look at the traffic in and out of Giovanni's building.

Giovanni had a few people he could trust in his operation.  They would come to his home between 11 AM and 2 PM, to blend in with the lunch crowd.  Fiona decided to pay Giovanni a visit the next day, when Giovanni's visitors were gone.

But before she went back to her hotel room, she decided to stop at a grocery store to pick up a bottle of liquor.  She had no plans to drink it.

 

Fiona put whatever she could put in her hair, save for shampoo and conditioner, before leaving her hotel room.   She'd need shampoo and conditioner when she came back.  She put a hairpin on a bracelet.  She rolled a dress in whatever filth she could find in the room.  She applied makeup, only to wet the mascara and smear the lipstick.  And, to be safe, she put on her lacy holster and Walther.

Then she headed to Giovanni's residence at 2 AM, after every bar in Venice had closed.

Banging on Giovanni's door, she yelled _"Salve?  Salve?_ Fix?  Fix?" in her American accent. She pretended as if her muscles were giving out on her.  Her yelling and banging were obnoxious enough to get Giovanni to open the door. 

"I don't know what you're talking about," Giovanni said in English.  "I can't give you a fix."

"But I met a man at bar and he said you had cocaine here."

"I don't have cocaine here!  Go somewhere else to get your fix."

Fiona sighed loudly.  "Oh, all right.  But can I use your lavatory before I leave?  It's a long walk back to the bars."

"You'd better be out in 15 minutes."

"I will."

"It's on the second floor, first door to the right."

Fiona walked up the stairs, pulling the hairpin off her bracelet.

She noticed there were six doors on the second floor.  Breaking into five doors with the hairpin shouldn't take longer than ten. 

It took a while, but Fiona found Aileen asleep on a bare mattress. 

As much as Fiona wanted to take Aileen with her, she had no choice but to close the door and let her sleep. 

 

Fiona changed out of her "cocaine fiend" guise into a shirt, pants, and high-heeled sandals.  It was time to celebrate with the liquor she bought at the grocery store earlier.  A cloth napkin she had swiped from an osteria, a mobile phone, Zippo lighter and her Walther, now tucked in the back of her jeans, would be joining her.

Before she arrived at Giovanni's residence, she doused the napkin in the liquor.  She stuffed the napkin in the liquor bottle. 

She left the liquor on Giovanni's door, set fire to the napkin, and waited until the flame was burning Giovanni's door.

Hiding near the church near Giovanni's place, Fiona called the emergency number in Italy, 113, on her mobile burner phone. 

"Hello?" Fiona said to the emergency operator.  "I don't speak Italian well.  I'm an American.  I was taking a nightly stroll near Saint Mary's when I saw this guy set fire to his own door!  I don't know why he did it, but I think it would be dangerous if this man attempted to burn down his house, wouldn't you?"

Fiona dumped the phone in the corner and headed back to Giovanni's. 

With a fire extinguisher, Giovanni put out the flame.

As soon as the fire was extinguished, Giovanni found a Walther PPK/S in his face.  Fiona tilted her head to her right.  She grinned.

"Looks like I'm not going to need that fix after all.  Take me to the girl, you bastard."

Giovanni took Fiona to Aileen.  Fiona woke Aileen up and cradled the girl in her arms.

"It's okay, Aileen," she said.  "I'm taking you home."

Fiona and Aileen went out a back entrance in Giovanni's residence as soon as the police arrived.  They weren't impressed with the burnt door, but they _were_ impressed by the quantities of cocaine in the house.

 

Even though Fiona felt like she had a deadline to get Aileen on a plane and back to Dublin, a snow globe caught her eye in Piazza San Marco. 

It was an exaggerated scene of Venice, complete with a gondolier, gondola and four candy cane-striped poles.  For Fiona, there was no time to do a leisurely tour of Venice, not with a child that wasn't hers in tow.  A scene in time, "frozen" by water, fake snow and glass, would do.

Fiona walked to the vendor selling the snow globes with Aileen.

"I'm going to get this one thing and then we'll take a taxi to the airport, okay?"

Aileen nodded.

 _"Ciao,"_ Fiona said to the vendor.

 _"Ciao,"_ the vendor said.

Fiona pointed to the snow globe.  "How much is that?  I want it."

 

"Your story to the authorities is that Alieen escaped from Giovanni's clutches and found a house to hide in for a few days.  I happened to be driving around Dublin and found the girl.  I saw her in the paper and I brought her back to you.  She never left the country."  Fiona winked at Chevonne.

"Aileen really likes you, Fiona," Chevonne said.  "She liked seeing the squares in Venice and running around at the Venice airport."

"I'm not really a babysitter.  I did what I would've done if my sister was in trouble.  And please, call me Fi.  My sister gave me that nickname when she was a toddler."

"I'd like to meet your sister."

"You can't.  She was killed in 1987 by a Royal Army soldier.  That's when my life changed."

A silence lingered in Chevonne's living room.

"That's when you joined the IRA."

Fiona nodded.  "It's okay now.  I'm not as angry as I was back then."

"How do I pay you back?  I feel like I should give you 750 Euros."

"You don't have to.  There's no charge.  Besides, I've always wanted to get out of the country and _not_ sell weapons for once.  I have a feeling I'll be doing this again."

"Thank you again, Fi."

"You're welcome."

Fiona left Chevonne's apartment, a smile on her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A sestieri is a city district specifically in Venice.


	3. Anger Ventilated

The day after the Venice job, Fiona went to Claire's grave by herself.  It was her first time seeing the gravestone since Claire died.

She read the engraving a few times: _In loving memory of Claire Glenanne, died 10 May 1987, aged 14 yrs._   Beside the gravestone was an etching of an angel.

Fiona wanted to hold back her tears.  She couldn't. 

"All I've wanted to do is make you proud, even in death.  I think I went about it the wrong way.  I _really_ went about it the wrong way.

"I wish we made up before we died.  I wish you didn't die angry at me.  I wish you made it home to have that horrid bread pudding.  But you didn't, and I can't change that.

"I'm not going after the British Army anymore.  That's not going to bring you back.  But I'll always be sorry about the cranberry juice and the sweater and everything we said.  I just wish it didn't lead us here.

"Thank you for stopping me in London.  You kept me from turning into the people that killed you.  And thank you for helping me realize no matter what I do from now on, I have to remember that the best way to avenge your death…is to have you in my heart." 

Fiona wiped her tears and smiled before leaving Claire's grave.  Losing Claire still hurt, but at least between Claire, the 14 years she believed she was at war with the Royal Army and herself, there was peace.

> When you forgive, you in no way change the past - but you sure do change the future.
> 
> Bernard Meltzer


End file.
